The plan of the Bush administration
to install democratic, secular, pro-American regimes in
the Middle East is fast unraveling. It is a classic
example of "blowback," where your actions ensure
the opposite of what you intended. There is the
insurgency in Iraq and the return of the Taliban in
Afghanistan. In democratic elections, Islamic
fundamentalist parties increased their representation in
the legislatures of Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and
Pakistan, while Palestinians and Turks voted for such
parties to lead their governments. Iranians rejected a
moderate, electing hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as
their president. There is rising anti-Americanism
throughout the Islamic world even in such secular states
as Indonesia, Tunisia and Turkey. The former Soviet
republics of Central Asia, whose independence from
Moscow the U.S. encouraged because of their strategic
location and petroleum reserves, are suspicious of
Washington and have turned to Russia for support. And
Israel, despite U.S. military and diplomatic assistance,
failed to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In reacting to these foreign policy
failures, and growing domestic opposition, a frustrated
Bush administration is lashing out. Foreign critics are
accused of being anti-American while domestic critics
are denounced as appeasers of terrorists. The need to
continue the war in Iraq is presented in near
apocalyptic terms and threats are made to bomb Iran and
Syria. The war itself is being continuously renamed in
hopes a more menacing title will win back public
support. So the war on terrorism became World War III,
World War IV, and now a world war against Islamo-facism.

That such hyperbole may shape
future U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East becomes an
alarming possibility with the publication of the article
"Blood
Borders" by Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army
lieutenant colonel, in the June 2006 issue of Armed
Forces Journal. AFJ is an influential publication, which
describes itself as "the leading joint service
monthly magazine for officers and leaders in the United
States military community Â… providing essential review
and analysis on key defense issues for over 140 years."
This article, therefore, is a trial balloon offering a
"moral" argument — redressing unjust borders —
for expanding the Iraq War across the entire Middle
East.

Peters asserts that while many
problems contribute to the "comprehensive failure"
that is the Middle East, one of the most important is
not addressed: unjust borders. He insists "a more
peaceful Middle East" depends on redrawing existing
political borders so they reflect the national
boundaries of major ethnic groups and provides a map of
what those new borders should look like. In suggesting
that redrawing the map of the Middle East should be a
priority of U.S. foreign policy, Peters is advocating
the failed policy of Woodrow Wilson that lasting peace
requires U.S. military intervention on behalf of what
Washington perceives to be other peoples' national
aspirations.

The article is deeply flawed.
Peters rightly criticizes current political borders in
the Middle East as "arbitrary and distorted. Â… Drawn
by self-interested Europeans." But his proposed new
borders are equally as arbitrary and distorted, drawn
solely to advance U.S. interests, which he defined in a
1997 article in Parameters, "Constant
Conflict," as "to keep the world safe for
our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those
ends, we will do a fair amount of killing."

Since his proposal calls for
dismemberment of seven Muslim countries and creation of
a small "Islamic Sacred State" of Mecca and
Medina, "a sort of Muslim super-Vatican,"
deprived of oil revenues and impoverished, it confirms
the suspicions of Muslims that the U.S. is at war with
Islam and is intent on carving up Muslim lands. If
adopted as policy, it will enrage 1Â½ billion Muslims,
increase the influence of fundamentalism and swell the
ranks of terrorists.

Furthermore, his proposal to amend
existing borders "to reflect the natural ties of
blood and faith" is plagued by inconsistency,
inaccuracy and misunderstanding. For instance, Saudi
Arabia, a country founded by Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud through
military conquest, is described as an "unnatural
state," but not Jordan, whose political existence
was the creation of the British government.

After condemning existing borders
as "colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop
generating hatred and violence until they are
corrected," the article states, "Kuwait would
remain within its current borders, as would Oman."
This is all the more incongruous since his proposed Arab
Shia state includes territories from Iran, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates, to which Arab Shias
traditionally have not laid political claims, and
excludes the one territory to which they have: Kuwait.

Asserting borders should reflect
"the natural ties of blood and faith," the author
proposes one state that would encompass Arab Shias, but
then advocates dividing Arab Sunnis among at least eight
separate states.

The article stresses the need for
political borders to be redrawn to "reflect ethnic
affinities and religious communalism," then insists
"one haunting wrong can never be addressed with a
reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against
the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire." Why not?
What of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh? It is pertinent to
the subject. Possession of Nagorno-Karabakh has provoked
one war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and may soon
ignite another. Yet, the issue of Armenia's borders,
unlike those of Azerbaijan, is excluded from his
analysis.

Peters advocates independence for
Pakistan's province of Baluchistan, which has a
population of 7 million, but not for the adjoining
Pakistani provinces of Sindh, which has a population of
35 million, or Punjab, which has a population of 86
million. By not calling for the latter ethnic groups'
independence as well, he is violating his proposal that
new borders be drawn reflecting "ethnic affinities
and religious communalism."

He calls for unification of Azeri
inhabited lands in Iran with the former Soviet republic
of Azerbaijan, but not for the unification of Tajik
inhabited lands in Afghanistan with the former Soviet
republic of Tajikistan.

While advocating political
unification and independence for Azeri, who number
between 23 million and 30 million, the author does not
call for the political unification and independence of
Pushtuns, who number 40 million. Instead, he proposes
that the 28 million Pushtuns in Pakistan's North West
Frontier Province unite with Afghanistan, where Pushtuns
number 12 million but are not the majority. This
contradicts his argument that borders should "reflect
ethnic affinities" since nearly half the territory
of this greater Afghanistan would be inhabited by
non-Pushtuns.

Apply consistently his proposal for
the political unification of Pushtuns inside a greater
Afghanistan, and it undermines his call for a united
Azerbaijan. The Azeri can achieve similar political
unification inside a greater Iran rather than in a
separate country. They already hold positions of
authority in Iran. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, is himself an Azeri.

In suggesting the Arab Sunni areas
of Iraq join Syria, Peters seems unaware that the
largest and most influential tribe among them is the
Shammar, one of the largest tribes in the region, a
tribe connected to Saudi Arabia by blood and marriage.
The heartland of the Shammar is in Saudi Arabia where it
also resides and where it has acquired great wealth. The
tribe is linked to the Saudi Royal House through the
mother of King Abdullah who was of the Shammar. If the
Arab Sunnis of Iraq united with another country it would
be Saudi Arabia, not Syria.

Peters writes that "the Kurds
[are] the world's largest ethnic group without a state
of its own." In fact, in neighboring Pakistan and
India, alone, there are ethnic groups with populations
as large as or larger than the Kurds that lack
independent statehood—Marathi, Punjabi, Pushtuns,
Sindhi, Tamils and Telugus, for example.

The author maintains an independent
Kurdistan will insure greater stability in the region.
But for the Kurds, as well as for other ethnic groups in
the Middle East, tribal loyalties often supersede
national identity. The two principal Kurdish political
parties in Iraq, for example, the Kurdistan Democratic
Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, reflect
rival, tribal identities. Instead of one Kurdistan,
several may emerge. If a single state is established, it
may be racked by tribal conflicts. Such possibilities
and their impact on regional stability are not
addressed. More important, the largest amount of
territory to be included within his proposed borders for
Kurdistan is land taken from Turkey. There is no
indication Turkey will voluntarily surrender this land
which constitutes a fifth of its territory. Force would
be required. The Turkish military numbers over a million
troops; it is the eighth largest in the world, the
second largest, after the U.S., in NATO. Since Turkey is
a member of NATO it can invoke Article V which declares
an attack against one member is considered an attack
against all. These facts and their implications are over
looked in this article.

Under Peters' proposal for the
seven Muslim countries to be politically dismembered
five are U.S. allies — Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudi Arabia is singled out in
the article as "a root cause of the broad stagnation
in the Muslim world" and its "influence has been
the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole
since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to
happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol)
conquest." But it is this very influence the U.S.
actively encouraged and exploited throughout the Cold
War. Washington supported the spread of Saudi religious
fundamentalism as a means to undermine secular, leftist
regimes in the Islamic world. It culminated in the
Muslim insurgency in Afghanistan against the Soviet
installed Marxist government. The U.S. had Saudi Arabia
help fund the war and Pakistan provide bases for the
insurgents. Now both allies are to be amputated of
territory and left as unviable, rump states. Such
treatment of friends can only undermine the
international credibility and influence of the U.S.

Then there are border changes for
which no rational explanations are offered. Jordan and
Yemen are to be enlarged at the expense of Saudi Arabia.
Why? The territories they are to receive are deserts
devoid of petroleum reserves. Is this a reward or a
punishment?

The most bizarre proposal calls for
a "Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn." Syria is
to be stripped of its Mediterranean littoral and the
land awarded to Lebanon. This contradicts the stated
purpose of the article of creating "blood borders."
Historically, today's borders of Lebanon constitute a
Greater Lebanon. And Phoenicia was not a state; it was a
loose union of city-states, whose heartland did not
include the Syrian coast. Annexing this land to Lebanon
would upset the demographic balance existing in the
country among the various religious communities and
promote political instability. Ironically, one of the
consequences of this proposal is that the population
inhabiting this greater, "Greater Lebanon" would
be overwhelmingly Muslim and likely vote to reunite the
enlarged state with Syria.

Peters concludes his article with a
warning that if the borders of the Middle East are not
redrawn "a portion of the bloodshed in the region
will continue to be our own." But its his proposal
that will ensure greater instability and more bloodshed
throughout the Middle East, while his advocacy of an
imperial foreign policy, "New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy,"
guarantees
many of those needlessly killed and maimed, and not just
in the Middle East, will be U.S. military personnel.

Joseph E.
Fallon is a freelance writer and researcher who resides
in Rye, N.Y. He lived in Egypt where he pursued his
advanced degree in Middle East studies and has traveled
to Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. He
earned a masters degree in international affairs from
Columbia University's School of International and Public
Affairs and is a member of the Association for the Study
of Nationalities, Harriman Institute, Columbia
University.